Quotes from Bizarro World September 10, 2010

This is the first in a series of quotations, and very likely commentary, from my reading of John Frame’s book, Salvation Belongs to the Lord, which I am reading for a class about faith in Christian life. I will be under-cover, so shhhhh…..

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Secularists usually try to argue that thepersonal reduces to the impersonal…[they] are ultimately just matter, motion, space, time, and chance. But the Bible teaches the opposite; the impersonal reduces to the personal. Matter, motion, space, time, and chance are, ultimately, tools used by one great Person to organize and run the universe he has made.

(page 7)

This is the first glimpse within this screed that we are not dealing with someone that is going to justify any argument in any other way than the Bible says so. In fact, it is clear, as I read on, that we are dealing with a person that believes that the Bible is as authoritative as the words directly from God’s mouth. In fact, he says pretty much just that in chapter 5.

The Bible, argues Frame, is infallible (even if it is not always precise), especially in regards to salvation.

So, when we see Frame addressing secularists, we should not expect a rational response. After all, the intellect (along with will and emotions) are part of our sinful nature. We must trust God’s word completely, especially over our own senses, judgments, and reason because these things are fallen. Rather than tell us why the impersonal reduces to the personal, we are told that Scripture says so, and the authority of Scripture is absolute.

No room for argument.

How stifling! How backwards! How sickening! And, granted, this form of Christian faith is not the only one out there, but it is a pervasive one among many churches. This type of Reformed theology, Calvinist in perspective and literalist in interpretation, is quite common. Even if most church-goers don’t take it so seriously as to actually live their life completely according to the implications of this worldview, it acts as a backdrop to our views about education, sexuality, and so on.

It can’t make the anti-intellectual culture we live in any better, because intellect is sinful. And I, my dear reader, am merely lost. But God created me to be lost, so I guess he won’t complain or punish me or anything….